The Butler Did It (7 page)

Riley rolled his eyes. “You know Mr. Thornley, m'lord. A real stickler he is, for what's proper.”

“Proper, Riley, is that I get something to eat before my ribs start shaking hands with my backbone. Now, go get that tray.”

“Yes, m'lord. I'll just be doing that, right now. You go sit yourself down, m'lord, rest your weary bones, and it's right back I'll be,” Riley said.

He watched until Morgan closed the door behind him, then headed, lickety-split, for the servant stairs, where he met Thornley, who was ascending the stairs with a duplicate to the tray now residing in Cliff Clifford's bedchamber.

Crisis averted. Postponed. But not resolved.

 

“W
E COULD TELL THEM
there is a problem with the drains, and they'd die if they remained here,” Thornley said as his small staff sat behind the closed and locked door of his private quarters, out of earshot from the Westham servants who had arrived with the marquis.

It had been a long and sleepless night. A worried one, too.

“Can we do that? I don't want to do that. Makes me look a poor housekeeper,” Mrs. Timon said, worrying at a thumbnail with her teeth. A splendid cook, Hazel Timon was tall, reed thin, and with a spotty complex
ion that would make it easy to believe she herself subsisted on stale bread and ditch water…and nail clippings.

“Mrs. Timon, you're biting again,” Thornley said, pointing a finger at her nasty habit.

“And
she's
snuffling again,” Mrs. Timon shot back, folding her hands in her lap as she glared at Claramae, who had been intermittently crying into her apron the whole of the night long.

Riley leaned over to put a comforting arm around the young maid, allowing his hand to drift just a bit too low over her shoulder, which earned him a sharp slap from the girl just as his fingertips were beginning to find the foray interesting.

“No, no, no, we can't have this,” Thornley said, clapping his hands to bring everyone back to attention. “Quarreling amongst ourselves aids nothing. Think, people. What else can we do?”

“I'd make up some breakfast,” Mrs. Timon offered, “excepting for that Gassie fella took over my kitchens.”

“Gas-
ton,
Mrs. Timon,” Thornley said absently, staring at the list he'd made during the darkest and least imaginative portions of the night.

The plague. Discarded as too deadly. And where was one to find a plague cart when one needed one? Worse, who would volunteer to play corpse?

Measles? Too spotty by half and, besides, Thornley's memory had told him that his lordship had contracted the
measles as a child, so covering Claramae in red spots wouldn't have the man haring back to Westham.

A fire in the kitchens? Mrs. Timon would have his liver and lights, and if it got out of hand, half of London could go up in flames. Their situation was desperate, but not dire enough to risk another Great Fire.

What was left?

Thornley's mind kept coming to the same conclusion.

“We…we could tell 'em the truth, give 'em their money back, and ask 'em very kindly to take themselves off,” Claramae offered weakly, then blew her nose in her apron.

Just what Thornley had been thinking, which was a worriment, if the simple-headed Claramae thought it a good idea.

An expensive silence settled over the room.

Mrs. Timon thought about the locked box in the bottom of her closet. She was a year short of having enough to lease a small cottage by the sea, complete with hiring a local girl as servant of all work, and never cooking another thing for another person. She'd eat twigs before she'd stand over another stove in August.

Riley wondered where and how he'd come up with his share, as he hadn't saved so much as a bent penny, preferring to wager everything each year on such hopefully money-tripling pursuits as bearbaiting, cockfights, and the occasional dice game in his favorite pub.

Claramae, author of the idea, sat quietly and didn't
think at all, which was all right, because she really wasn't very good at it anyway.

Which left Thornley.

“I suppose we could. We were overly ambitious in the first place, I realize now. And, as it's nearly gone seven, and we have had no other idea, I suppose we'll have to resort to the truth. Come along,” he said, getting to his feet. “The Clifford ladies and the rest will be rising shortly, as is their custom. We must speak to them before they ring for their morning chocolate and alert the other servants to their presence. We'll also begin with them simply because there are more of them.”

“Yes, but the money…?” Mrs. Timon asked, shuffling her carpet-slippered feet as she followed Thornley.

“As this entire idea was mine, I will be responsible for all remunerations, Mrs. Timon,” Thornley said gamely.

“Yes, but who will
pay
them?” Riley asked worriedly, trailing along behind, dragging Claramae with him.

 

E
MMA HEARD THE KNOCKING
on her bedchamber door, but chose to ignore it. She didn't want her morning chocolate. She didn't want morning, as she'd not slept well, a nagging feeling that something might be wrong in the mansion keeping her awake, alert for any sound.

The sound now, however—whispers mixed with whimpering—could not be ignored, so she kicked back the covers and padded to the door of the bedchamber and put her ear to the door.

“Claramae, I said knock and enter. As a man, obviously I can't go in there, not with Miss Clifford possibly still not dressed for the day.”

“But I don't…I don't want to.”

“Stand back, the lot of you.
I'll
do it.”

“Riley, stifle yourself.”

“Oh, for goodness' sakes, I'll do it.”

Emma jumped back as the latch depressed, and barely missed having the tip of her nose nipped off as the door swung inward and Mrs. Timon stepped inside…followed by a widely grinning Riley, who took no more than two swaggering, arms-waving steps before a long, black-clad arm appeared, grabbed the footman by the collar of his livery and yanked him back out again.

“Miss Clifford?”

“Yes?” Emma said, stepping out from behind the door. “Is something wrong, Mrs. Timon?”

“Well, miss, you could maybe say that, miss…can I fetch your dressing gown?”

Emma frowned at the woman, then retreated to the chair beside her bed, snatched up her dressing gown and slipped into it. “Better, Mrs. Timon?” she asked, tying the sash tightly around her waist.

“Yes, miss, thank you, miss,” Mrs. Timon said. “Your slippers?”

What on earth? Emma located her slippers and put them on.

“Thank you, miss. That should do it,” the cook cum
housekeeper cum obscure visitor said, then opened the door once more.

In trooped Riley, still grinning (but no longer swaggering), followed by Thornley, who had his chin lifted so high his only view of the bedchamber could have been the painted ceiling, and Claramae, whose chin could not be lower as she, in turn, inspected the floor.

Emma sat down on the pink-and-white-striped slipper chair, tossed the long, fat single braid over her shoulder and folded her hands in her lap.

She'd been right. Something was wrong.

Her mother had tackled Thornley in the hallways and made a complete cake of herself.

Her grandmother had been caught out snooping in Sir Edgar's drawers.

Cliff had—well, Cliff could be guilty of most anything.

Miss Emma Clifford did not upset easily. With her family, a person who upset easily would be in her grave, white of hair, wrinkled of skin, and dead of old age at two and twenty, if she did not learn to control her feelings.

Her temper, however, was another thing, and although kept in check for the most part, when unleashed, as her mother would gladly tell anyone, it could be A Terrible Thing. Indeed, Emma was already working up a good scold for whoever had caused what she was sure to be the next very uncomfortable minutes.

The servants, however, having only witnessed the sweeter side of Miss Emma's nature in the week the Cliffords had been in residence, had no inkling that she would be anything but helpful in solving their dilemma. Understanding, even.

The three servants looked to Thornley, so Emma did, too. “Is there something I should know?” she asked.

 

O
N THE FLOOR BELOW
, Morgan turned over in his bed, half-awake after hearing what he thought was a rather loud, angry female voice in his dreams, and went back to sleep.

Moments later, he pulled a pillow over his head and made a mental note to instruct Thornley to keep all servants gagged until at least eleven o'clock of a morning.

Moments after that, his own heavy breathing was the only sound in the bedchamber…and he didn't hear that at all.

 

R
ILEY, HIS EARS STILL
stinging from Miss Clifford's talking-through-her-clenched-teeth orders, knocked on Sir Edgar's door. He waited until he heard the key turn in the lock and then stepped inside…to be met by a man already dressed for the day, although his shirt cuffs had been turned back clear to the elbow. Sir Edgar had already retreated across the room, to stand with his back against the door to his small dressing room.

Riley thought the man looked rather odd. Like he'd been caught out at something.

“What do you want?” Sir Edgar asked, his hands covered by a towel.

“Smells funny in here, don't you know,” Riley said, sniffing the air. “Smells like…like paint?”

“You'll smell out of the other end of your nose if you don't tell me why you've barged in here, my good man,” Sir Edgar said, still carefully keeping his hands covered.

“Um…yes, Sir Edgar, your pardon, sir. It's…it's Miss Clifford, sir. She requests your presence downstairs, in the drawing room, in—well,
now,
sir.”

Sir Edgar peeked under the towel to look at his fingers. He had at least ten minutes of scrubbing with strong soap in front of him. “She does, does she?”

“Yes, sir. Powerful clear she was on that, sir.
Now,
sir.”

“Yes, I heard that part. Do you know why she wants to see me, boy?”

Riley shook his head furiously. “No, sir. It's not me knowing anything. Couldn't say that I do. I never know anything, you could ask anybody. But she wants everybody.”

“Everybody, you say,” Sir Edgar repeated, turning to the washstand and, with his back obscuring what he was about, reaching for the large bar of lye soap, first putting down the key he'd hidden in his hand. “Very well. Please deliver my compliments to Miss Clifford and tell her that I shall join everyone directly.”

“Yes, sir, I'll tell her, sir. And it's thanking you I am,
and reminding you how I've been so very pleased to serve you, sir.”

“Yes, yes,” Sir Edgar said, keeping his back turned. “See me later for your penny. Now go away.”

As he scrubbed, Sir Edgar could hear doors opening and closing along the hallway, and knew that he should hurry if he wished to not miss whatever was going to transpire in the drawing room. A wise man never missed anything.

Which explained just how wise Sir Edgar believed himself to be…and how wise he actually was…as he left the key to his small dressing closet sitting on the washstand instead of replacing it in his pocket as he headed downstairs.

 

E
MMA STOOD
with her arms crossed just beneath her bosom while Thornley explained to everyone else what he had explained to her just a short hour ago—it had taken Daphne a little while to complete even a cursory toilette, and Mrs. Norbert had refused to join the group until after she'd breakfasted on a thick slice of ham, a half-dozen coddled eggs and a lovely sugar bun.

“…and so, sorry as I am, I must ask you all to leave. Now, before the master awakes.”

 

M
ORGAN SAT BOLT UPRIGHT
in bed, his skin crawling, his nerves jangling as the echoes of a scream that could only have been produced by a considerable multitude of pigs simultaneously stuck in a grate shattered his peace.

“What in bloody hell—?”

He threw back the covers and headed for the door.

He came back before reaching it, still as naked as the day he'd been born, and slammed into his dressing room, to wake a sleeping Wycliff.

“Clothes, man. Get me clothes.”

The valet who, Morgan was disgusted to learn, slept in a voluminous nightshirt, a large white nightcap with a point on it and displaying a tassel on the tip of it, and a violet-colored satin mask with no eyeholes in it, turned over on the narrow cot and continued to snore.

There was another female scream. Less bloodcurdling, but still with the power to reach his ears from a considerable distance.

“Testing me. That's what it is. The Fates are testing me, my resolve,” Morgan grumbled, spying the pantaloons and shirt Wycliff must have laid out before going to bed last night.

Morgan looked at his hose and tossed them into a corner before pulling on his pantaloons over his bare bottom. He punched his arms into the sleeves of the freshly ironed white shirt and, without bothering to either button it or tuck it into his waistband, slammed out of the dressing room, through his bedroom, and out into the hallway.

By the time he got to the closed doors of the drawing room, five of the servants he'd brought with him from Westham were crowded around those doors, giggling
and snickering and then quickly remembering that other duties called them when they saw their master descending on them like a devil just raised from Hell.

Morgan caught one of them by the sleeve as he tried to bolt. “What's going on, William?”

“Lady screaming, my lord,” the under-footman said quickly. “Lots of talking.”

“That's it? A lady, not one of the staff?” He hadn't been in town long enough to have offended a lady. “Wait a minute. How did this lady get in here?”